Happenings
by It'sTimeToDance
Summary: The Joker's rise to insanity, through the eyes of the one that should have known him best. Three-Shot, at most.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **I don't want to make his _mom _insane, but I want to make her a little off-kilter, just so it's not _so _ridiculous how insane this guy becomes. I'm thinking three-shot...?

* * *

**Happenings**

_**Part One: Prologue to Madness**_

_"I see it in you_

_the monster that can't be stopped"_

He was born on a rainy day.

Not really raining, actually. More like a tropical storm, with the wind blowing so hard it seemed the walls around the hospital shook in defiance. The moment seemed as downcast as the murky clouds.

But still, I was happy, and I saw no reason not to be. I had my child, the one I'd always knew I'd have, and I was thrilled about it. They gave him to me, and I looked at the man beside me. Not his father, though, because his father was still out getting a pack of cigarettes, so this man would have to do until he got back. I really couldn't remember his name at that moment, but it really didn't matter. All that mattered was this little blob of pink and red, squirming like a bug and pumping his little fist in the air.

"Jack..." I whispered to him, "Jack...Napier...." His father's name. Perfect.

The doctor's look on beside me, smiling with me, and they file out, one by one, but I can hardly bring myself to notice.

It's only a few minutes before he opens his eyes. They're the deepest brown I've seen, almost black. I feel myself drowning in them, and I see him smiling. It was an unsettling bend of muscles that seemed unnatural, almost unholy, on his little face. It's the toothless, off kilter grin of a madman. I said nothing about it, though. They might take him away. Take away my baby.

Guess one, clue to what was, and what would occur. I let it pass.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I can't see this getting more then three shot. I'd say that it was a character study, but that would give you the idea that I give a crap.


	2. Chapter 2

**

* * *

**

Happenings

**Part Two: Catalyst**

He grew up. It came as a shock to me. I hoped he'd stay that pink and red lump forever. I hoped.

We moved into a small apartment, one with one room and an alcove with a toilet in the corner. Bill--the man's name--covered it with a tarp, and nailed three planks of wood onto the wall for shelves. I had no friends that had followed me from high school, my mother was registered in three women's shelters around the country, yet resided in none. Even if I knew where she'd gone off to, she'd have no money. She never did.

"But we don't need her..." I found myself whispering to him, my baby, as Bill hammered at a chunk of wood, "...we don't need no one, do we?"

His eyes--Jesus, his eyes--were like little black holes. The little sparkle had stayed at the hospital, and now they seemed flat, with only a calculating, cold shine to them. He smiled, though, wide and happy, and I chose to look at that instead. The toothless little grin, that dismantled the inhuman glare. I smiled with him.

God help me, I was naive.

The months ticked by, nothing getting bigger other then the stains in the ceiling. Jack's eyes became less and less ignorable over the hours, the more I looked at him. His smiles became daunting, and the knowing glances grew unsettling. He hardly cried. He hardly moved. Things would shine, and he would stare at them, sometimes for hours, even after the shine had gone. He did stare alot. At everything.

Bill grew restless. Grew impatient. Grew very, very thirsty.

He'd sit in his chair, watching Jack play with a discarded toy I'd taken from the dumpster behind the apartment building. "Kid's got problems...they ain't right, those eyes...kid's got problems," he'd mutter to himself, sometimes loud enough for me to hear, as though he expected me to do something about it.

He became violent, throwing empty bottles at the walls and tossing over furniture. He would always say we were freaks, that kid was going to end up in jail or something. I wondered, sometimes, why he stayed if he hated us so much.

He never hit Jack, he never really hit me. He'd grab and shove and scream, but never really abusive. I would let him scream, wait until he fell asleep. It was a least once a week, and it was never really too much of a problem. Jack found it amusing.

One night, Bill came home. He smelled of tobacco, beer and incense, swinging and crossing his feet as he walked. I held Jack close to me, behind the tarp, sitting on the lid of the toilet and let him toy with my earrings, let him poke my neck with the sharp ends. He giggled and drooled, like every other day, and seemed unaware of the bottles crashing.

A meaty hand had shoved the plastic blue curtain open, and grabbed my arm. I dropped Jack as he jerked me to my feet, shaking me and screaming in an intellagable slur. I screamed, shoving my half closed fist into his chest, "You _ass_! I'm calling the police! I'll scream! _Rape! Rape!_"

His fingers clenched my jaw together, pushing me back until my back was held up against the plastered wall, my knees pressed against the brim of the toilet, "Shut the _fuck _up, you _whore!"_

I punched at his shoulders, expecting Jack to start crying. He had crawled around the toilet and towards the stool we used as a counter. He giggled, though. My baby giggled, and that was all I could hear over Bill's drunken shouts.

I struggled under his hold, and his grasp suddenly became tighter. He shouted in pain, and his stance faltered. I pushed his hand away, and slide down the wall until I could see past him.

We had no money, hardly enough to pay rent. I would go to a fast food restaurant every few weeks and fill my purse with plastic forks and knives, sometimes straws and ketchup packets. We kept them in a little bin in the corner of the apartment.

One of them, I could see, was embedded in the back of Bills shin, stained red down to the handle. Blood--dark, almost black, under the light--dripped down to his ankle, creating stains like rivers down to his boots.

Behind him, a few inches, Jack had blood on his finger tips. He was smiling.

I yelped as Bill staggered back, scooping Jack into my arms and backing up into the opposite wall, watching him curse and hop towards the door. He took the keys to the truck and fumbled with the door knob, "Your _freaks_. You and your fucking kid. He's got _problems. _That kids fucked up. Your both _fucked up_."

The door slammed, and the thin walls shook.

I looked down at Jack, his eyes huge, like I've never seen them. The eyes people make when they get off rollor coasters, or while driving a car past the speed limit. Like his adrenaline was running like a freight train through his veins.

He was _thrilled._

It was quiet, so quiet, and he smiled up at me, giggling.

A laugh grew in my chest, a panicked, almost hysterical laugh, "Time for bed, baby."

* * *

By his second birthday, he still had not begun to talk. He walked, gradually, because I needed him to go to the store for me. He couldn't crawl two blocks.

I had a new man living in the house, one with a real nice job and hundreds of little keys jangling from his belt. He would always let Jack play with them. He loved shiny things.

"Baby..." I once whispered, in a stupor and slung across an old armchair I'd gotten from a garbage dump. My bottle was clenched between my fist, swinging around the empty air. When I heard no reply, I forced my voice to speak louder, "Jack...?"

Giggling.

Through clouded eyes, I scanned the apartment. I saw him, a little blue and tan lump in the corner, his back towards me and his elbows moving up and down, as though he were smashing something.

"Baby?"

He giggled again, and I pushed myself from the arm chair and stumbled towards him, "Honey, what are you..."

My vision cleared, and all I could see was the crushed shells of lady bugs and cock roaches. The insides were ground into the already stained carpet, and Jack held a large, black beetle in his palm, squeezing it between his fingers until juice dripped down his wrist.

_Oh, God..._

"Jack!" I snapped, uneasily pulling him away from the massacre, "Your making a mess!"

He grabbed at the air, making some kind of obscene, heart broken whine of a noise. I put him on the arm chair and gave him a silver spoon, one of the only ones we had.

Lady bugs, cock roaches, beetles, some crawling around on three feet, barely alive. Others, indistinguishable smudges in the tan carpet, didn't even twitch.

"Now I gotta clean this up," I called across the room, snatching a rag from one of the wooden shelves, "Baby, if you wanna make a mess, wait 'til your outside."

When the man came home--God, I can't remember his name--I asked him to move the chair across the room, on top of the stains. I forgot about it.

* * *

I found him behind the building, once, when a neighbor came to the door and told me to get him off her cat. I assumed her was playing with the thing, and followed her down the stairs and onto the brown lawn.

When people say something sounds as bad as a cat being tortured to death, they don't have an idea about what they're talking about. It's an inhuman noise that no person could even hope to imitate, and it makes your hair stand on end.

The grass was stained with blood, splattered around like someone put a hand against a cheese grater and pushed. There was a knife lying in the middle of it, crimson red and shining under the summer sun. Jack's back was towards me, and he giggled to himself like any five year old. Blood soaked it's grey, matted fur and it's legs twitched weakly under my son's hold. He was carving another knife--a smaller one--over it's front paws, drawing more blood and dripping onto his jeans. His eyes shone, like they used to, with this manic glint of intelligence, of insanity. His skin was pink and glazed with sweat, and his grin was from ear to ear.

"Jack!" I shrieked, dropping my half lit cigarette and dragging him away from the mutilated cat, "What--Jesus, what are you..."

"Your baby a monster," the neighbor hissed in a thick Russian accent, waving her chubby arms at the remains of her pet, "my country, we burn things like that to the ground. We don't let them run around with knives and kill neighbor cat. Your child monster. He monster. Get out, or I call the police. Get out!"

I let her ramble, leading Jack back to the apartment and locking the door.

I looked at the blood splattered on his hands and knees, the wild grin that wouldn't go away. "Baby..." I whispered as I rushed for a dishrag and the deteriating bar of soap beside the sink, "baby, baby...Jacky...God..."

"You said not to make a mess inside," he started, as though to justify himself. He didn't look at me as I scrubbed at his hands, "you said to go outside, and the cat was walking around..."

"I told you not to play with knives!" I barked, finding myself digging my nails into his little wrist and shaking him, "Don't...baby, you don't..._do _that."

"But--"

"_Never! _You little s_hit! _You _never _do things like that! _Ever! _Do you get me? _Never!" _I was screaming, now, and shaking him so hard his back thumped against the wall. I expected him to cry, like any four year old should. He didn't. He just stared at me, incredulous, confused. He seemed uneffected.

"Why not?" he asked, as though it were the most simple, most reasonable, question in the world.

He felt no remorse. His face was slightly distorted by his wonder, but he did not cry, and he did not apologize.

Why not? Why _not?_

I think it was then, that I realized my child was a little monster. I couldn't admit it, to myself, nor to any one else, but I knew it. Like a passing flash of guilt, it remained, untouched and left to grow. I did nothing but send him to bed with no dinner, and even that was because we had no food in the house. I created him, and I let him become this _thing. _

Somewhere, his father his laughing his drunken ass off.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Beginning of the End**

_"I always loved you  
even when you disappeared."_

His teachers thought I was a bad mother.

One of them knocked on the door, once, when Jack was asleep on his little mattress in the corner of the room, and I was half drunk and searching the want ads.

She buzzed. I rushed towards the little box practically stapled to the wall, "What?"

Frank, my boyfriend, had left two days ago, right before the rent was due. I wasn't sure why I insisted on giving every man I met a key. I was young – only twenty-four – and I was afraid, I suppose. More than I normally would have been. Jack had become easily more isolated, his eyes becoming dull and calculating, and I kept finding things in his pockets. Small razors, the kind you use to open letters, and disposable blades you use to shave with. Pocketknives, and expensive silverware probably taken from a restaurant. Once, I found safety scissors in his pocket, and the tips had dry blood on them. I told myself it was because they shined, not because they were sharp. I liked the idea of my baby liking things that shine.

So, she spoke through the intercom, her voice veiled by the cheap electrical wires and the cover of plastic, "This is Ms. Kinnian? Jack's teacher?"

I pressed my finger to the button, hissing a string of curses, and glancing at the walls. "He do somethin'?"

"No, no," she said furtively. I could hear her teeth chatter through the fuzz, "I'd just like to discuss his progress. You haven't answered the number you gave us..."

"Phone's disconnected," I grunted. In truth, they pressed for a number for weeks, and I just scratched the first numbers to pop in my mind on a slip of paper and slipped in Jack's backpack. We don't have a phone.

"Oh, well," the women said uncomfortably, "I – yes. May I come up?"

Ventilation hung from the plaster holes in the walls, and piping swung from the ceiling like a pendulum, shaking whenever the neighbors upstairs walked across it. I slept in the matted old armchair, surrounded by empty bottles and cartons of cigarettes. Jack slept on his mattress, next to the counter and under a cheaply crafted shelf. "Uh...wait a minute. There's a...uh...coffee shop, like, down the road a couple blocks. Talk there. Be down in a minute. Uh...hold on. One minute…"

I took a damp sweatshirt from the armchair and stumbled down the stairs, the brisk, harsh cold of the winter air shocking me to awareness. The city lights consisted of flickering bulbs screwed into poles barely hanging on the cement, and men huddled together over a warmly blazing garbage can beside the apartment door. A woman, clearly out of place, stood several feet away. Her cropped, brown hair was pulled into a severe bun, and her jacket was creased with religious ironing. She had a soft face, with wide, unsuspecting eyes, and flushed cheeks.

I caught her eye, and she smiled, "You must be Mrs. Napier?"

"Ms.," I sniffed, rubbing my hands against my arm, "Kinsey. Ms. Come on, 's cold."

I stomped forward, and I heard the clapping of heels behind me.

We sat down, and she didn't skip a minute before she began a lecture or some crap on how crazy Jack is and how she thinks he needs professional help and all this. I hardly listened, leaning back in the cafe chair and squinting.

"Maybe…" she said, "Maybe we could think of some sort of…arrangement. I'm sure the school can send for a psychologist that he can see, and—"

"What makes you think he's got problems?"

She stiffened and pursed her lips, "Ms. Kinsey, I never said--"

"That's exactly what you said," I leaned in, "You think my kid's got issues."

"I—"

"_Maybe," _I said, "you should go and mind your _own damn business."  
_  
She leaned back, her eyes widening a little more than I'd thought possible, "Ma'am—"

"Don't you _ma'am _me!" I stood up, sliding my jacket on and walking towards the door, "You don't come to _my _house in the middle of the fucking night and tell me _my _kid's got problems! _Maybe _you're the one with _problems_!"

She began to follow me, "Ms. Kinsey, I'm only concerned about your son's welfare, I—"

Other customers were beginning to stare at us, and I turned abruptly on my heels, "_Maybe _you can go fuck yourself, _Ms. Kinnian._"_  
_  
When I walked down the street, back to the apartment, I still heard her pleading behind me, until I was past the corner. I forgot about it.

* * *

One day, I got called down to the school. I took my boyfriend's car, an old Ford pickup. I was sent to the guidance office. I found Jack sitting in a plastic chair, across from a woman. She had a tight bun of graying blonde hair, her makeup made her look like a shriveled up clown, and she looked like someone I would have spit at in high school. I sat down next to Jack at her indication.

"Is there a problem?" I asked, folding my legs and trying not to slouch.

Jack did, however. His brown hair hung over his eyes in uncut, greasy shags, and his t-shirt hung loosely off his shoulders like he were wearing a hot air balloon. Past his hair, his eyes were blank, staring at the counselor in a cold, calculating indifference. He had the expression of someone who spent too much time thinking, with more opinions then generally excepted. Old, like a war veteran. It shocked me. I hadn't really took a look at him in…a while. I realized the counselor was speaking again, so I tuned back in.

"—disruptive behavior. He's using the tips of his pencils to scratch cut his classmates. He sent a boy to the nurse for stitches, Mrs. Napier—"

"Ms.," I interrupted, leaning against the chair and eyeing the room, only half listening, "Ms. Kinsey. Ms."

"_Ms. _Kinsey," she drawled, and I noticed her pen moving across a plastic clipboard, "this really isn't something we take lightly here. I truly believe your son is deeply _disturbed_—"_  
_  
"By whose standards?" Jack muttered. He didn't look up and, for a moment, it was as if he didn't say anything at all.

"What?" the counselor asked.

His irises twitched, and he looked up, a look of condescending vexation wiped across his face, "How am I _disturbed? _Maybe I'm the _normal_ one here. Maybe all of you are the one's who're _disturbed."  
_  
"Mr. Napier," the counselor scoffed, "I don't think—"

"You don't think _what, _Ms. Evans?" he interrupted, and his undersized body seemed to shake with anger, "You don't think I'm _normal? _You don't think I'm _sane? _You think I should be like the other little assholes walking around this place?"

"Jack," I hissed, feeling my skin itch, "don't talk like that."

He stood up suddenly, his eyebrows wrinkling together, his teeth bared like a rabid hyena's, "I don't give a _fuck _what you think. You're all just a shit load of _idiots _with no reason for anything! _You can go fuck yourself!"  
_  
He stomped towards her desk and threw cups of pens and pencils to the tiled floor, in such a fluid, eased motion that it could have been a dance. His body did not reflect the anger of his voice. It was still – even in its movements – calm. Each limb acted on its own, without effecting any others. It was like watching a robot.

Jack took a pen as the counselor shrieked at him, at me, and...I don't know. It looked like...he took it in his hand and plunged it down in perfect precision. The pen nosedived, guided by his steady hand, and was suddenly embedded in the woman's thigh.

The counselor shouted in pain, shaking her leg in every direction and pressing down against the skin. Blood dripped down her knee, and she hobbled up and down in a frantic hysteria.

I found myself shouting as well, snapping up so hard the plastic chair toppled over. My heart thudded against my chest, and Jack stood beside the desk. His face…blank. No, not blank, I realized as my eyes focused. Curious. Fascinated. Intrigued. Blood poured freely down the'/. woman's leg...and he was curious.

My son is crazy.

* * *

The door slammed shut, and I buried my head in my hands.

What was that...the second this month?

It was late on Saturday, almost midnight. Stan – or Steve? – drove off with his rusted truck.

I looked to the side, and saw Jack watching from the corner – where else would he watch from, after all? His hair hung in his eyes, and he looked small under his large sweatshirt. He was eleven.

He looked unsettled, his eyes wide and his frame shaking like a leaf. I forced my muscles into a smile, "C'mon, baby. Why don't I teach you how to play cards?"

Face blank, he looked up at me. He got up, and walked over, "'Kay."

I wiped my face and combed back my hair, rifling through the counter drawer for the worn down deck of cards I'd gotten at the last hotel I worked at. Red, with old marker scratches on the back ends, I crossed my legs and sat in the middle of the floor. He stared down at me, just a few inches from his little corner.

The forced smile hurt my face, and I waved him over, patting the spot across from me, "Come on, Jacky."

He hesitated, inching forward and eventually settling on his knees, watching.

My hands still shook, and I couldn't see straight. I slid the deck across the wooden floor, in front of him, "Deal the cards, baby."

He looked at the deck, looked up at me, and slid the cards into two piles. I tapped my finger against the floor.

The joker card landed face-up on his pile, and touched his wrist. He looked up again.

"We don't use that one, Jacky."

The look he made was something of a mix between confusion and annoyance, and he squinted, "Why?"

I smiled wider, growing tense, "We just don't. It's part of the rules."

"What rules?"

I pulled my hands back, "Just...the rules. You don't use the joker in cards."

He seemed angered by this, only slightly, "_Why?"_

I avoided his eyes, taking the cards and piling the remains, "You just _don't. _It ruins the game."

He looked as though he wanted to counter, or argue, or scream, but he didn't. He let his shoulders fall and smoothed out his deck. I was grateful.

* * *

The world was hazy, and my hands hung from the sides of the armchair. The bottle of liquor was heavy in my hand, and slipped from my fingers with a clatter. My eyes were squinted, barely open, and all I could see was the blurry shape of Jack.

The vibrant outline of his eyes – piercing in their intensity – stared back at me, and the black line of his mouth frowned.

I wasn't thinking straight.

He didn't smile enough. I hadn't seen him smile since the day he was born. Always frowning, always serious. Always angry. Always mad...crazy...mad....

So serious...

"Baby," I slurred, my wrist twitching, "Baby...Jacky...you gotta _smile. _You don't _smile _enough...little boys...they _smile_..."

He didn't move from his spot. I waved him over, and his feet slid across the floor.

A stupid grin stretched across my face, and I groped for another bottle, "You're so _serious _all the time. You gotta _smile. _Smile, baby..."

His hand was cold against my bare arm, and he wordlessly knocked the bottle from my hands.

"For God's sake, _say _something!" I said, curling my fist around his skinny wrist, shaking him back and forth, "Freak, _say something!"  
_  
I couldn't see him, "Mom."

"Be _Normal! _Normal people _talk. _Normal people _smile! _Goddammit!"

His other hand came down on my forearm, pounding on my numb skin like little hammers, "_Mom!"_

I slapped him across the cheek, a detached sort of movement I didn't realize happened until I felt the sting on my knuckle.

He stumbled back, his heels knocking one of the empty bottles into the wall, thousands of shards of glass spilling across the floor. I heard the breath come out of him like a yelp, and the sound of his shoes scuffing against each other.

I was irrational, angry for no apparent reason and blinded by alcohol. A scream ripped through my throat, but I couldn't move. I shouted instead.

"Get out!" I shrieked, "Don't let me _see you _until your fucking _normal! Get out!"_

I didn't realize he left until a few moments later, but I still screamed. I pounded my fist against the armchair over and over, wondering why I didn't get one of those smiling blonde babies from those hospital brochures.

* * *

He was nineteen when it happened.

I was sitting on the little coffee table, in the middle of the same one room apartment, flipping through bills and waiting for him to come home with his paycheck. It was a Friday, and he worked at a fast food restaurant cleaning grills. I hadn't seen him since yesterday morning.

It was raining, so I didn't hear the door creak open, or the sound of heavy footsteps awkwardly drag across the floor. My hair veiled the right side of my face, so I did not see the slumped figure standing only ten feet away.

When I did look up, I yelped.

"What did you _do?!" _

A bloody face looked back at me. The color of his forehead was pale, and his eyes were downcast. A smile--red, gruesome, _unnatural_--stretched from ear to ear, jagged and monstrous. Sick, deteriorating laughter shook his frame like tremors, and he seemed to be hysterical.

"I just..._smiled."  
_  
His voice...

It didn't sound like..._him._

Did I know him well enough to decide?

I fell from the chair and barely kept on my feet, gripping the edge of the table. Envelopes went scattering across the floor, closer and closer to the bloody tips of his boots.

His smile..._that _smile.

"What's wrong…" he said, in a voice that sent chills up my spine, with an inhuman face that was falsely concerned, "This is what you wanted."

_No.  
_  
"Jacky," I whimpered, tears obscuring my vision, "God, Jack."

He stepped closer, and the shine of a knife reached my line of vision.

"Mother," he said, licking his lips, and I pressed my back against the wall, "_Mommy..._you need to _smile."  
_  
The smile reached the light, and bile rose in my throat. I could see the muscles of his jaw moving with every breath, and the cartilage shine with blood.

He was closer, and closer, and closer…

"What's..._wrong _with you?" was all I could say. He laughed – a loud, guttural release of air that sounded painful.

My elbow stung as it dug into the splinters of the wall, and he was close enough for me to smell. Sweaty, salty. Dirty. He smelled like blood – _so _much like blood. He was wearing a jacket I had never seen before, lazily stitched together by drunken hands, patched by spare, mismatched cloth. And he came closer…closer…

His hand came forward and wrapped around my forearm as I started to squirm away. He pressed it down, and I felt bruises forming. Cold steel was against my cheek, and his breath was rancid as he whispered in my ear.

"Why...so...serious?"

* * *

**Author's Note: Woo-HOO! Finished! FINALLY! I hope it's okay, I kind of rushed at the end. If it sucks...your screwed, cause your the one who got stuck reading it :)**

**Props to meh homie Swing Girl At Heart for beta-ing.**

* * *


End file.
